Tag Archives: education

1. Deadlines are etched in stone, signed and sealed. Don’t waste a single breath on making an excuse because most of these professors understand you’re a creative individual, a creative liar especially, and will refrain from giving you the opportunity to cop out. Granted, there will be some professors who will sigh and accept profuse bleeding as a minimally acceptable excuse but I wouldn’t push the limits on this one. They’re gonna say that if the blood wasn’t coming from your eyes or your hands, you could still manage a decent design.

2. Start your projects early. In high school, you probably got away with frequent and conscious procrastination. If you have two weeks available to you, inhale and exhale digital design until you feel like you’re in desperate need of oxygen, submit your assignments before the deadline, and regain breath. It’s all about being punctual and knowing when you need to get work done and when to avoid clicking cat videos. Priorities, people, priorities. Get er’ done.

3. If the work isn’t even believable to you, for the love of god, do not try to dispute the grade. I repeat. ABORT MISSION. Quietly accept that you can’t win this fight and prepare immensely for the next opportunity you have to pack a punch. That infamous question will arise in the midst of that uncomfortable conversation you chose to initiate with your professor, “why did you do this?”, and if you can’t explain your process, you’re a goner if you don’t know how to prove what you did was what was best for the assignment. Make your work not only beautiful but also believable! Remember, convincing yourself of the assignment’s success comes before convincing someone else that your concept reflects thought. You can’t teach what you don’t know.

4. Don’t challenge the strength that is the copyright. Your grade will reflect your originality. Copying another artist’s work, especially as a Digital Media major, is like sinning in church. We’re all artists begging to have our creative voices heard, and the last think we want is to hear our concepts sputtering out of someone else’s distasteful mouth. Who would want to collab with a cheater, anyway? You’d be better off manning the project alone.

5. Be true to your style at the end of the day (note that I said at the end of the day!). It can be hard to let this concept continue to house your mind because all of your Digital Media professors will want to tug your arms in their own direction and essentially leave you with no limbs to fight back from the artistic suppression they want to force upon you. I’m exaggerating, but seriously. You should do what you can to satisfy the standards of the class without sacrificing what makes your work a reflection of who you are! It’s tricky, frustrating, and saddening at times to feel like your work isn’t “A”-worthy at every go, but when you take all the knowledge that they offer you and your own creative spirit and merge them into this crazy artistic powerhouse within your mind, you can do anything. Seriously anything. Screw dreams. Let your art take you on an adventure worth working for!

Do you have any suggestions for all the fantastic Digital Media majors out there?

I could classify myself in a number of ways, put myself in a box so you know exactly who and what I am, but I wouldn’t prefer to, simply because the box is too small. Ultimately, I am an amateur artist that seeks to discover the world on her own. I want to be able to drop everything one day, and just for some time, gather my own education through experience. They say that going to college and getting a degree is a necessary evil (and obviously a fun necessary evil at times), but I’m beginning to realize there’s more out there for me than burying my head in a textbook. Memorizing the scientific names of species covered in class is a daunting task for me (as my memory has no capability of doing this). So what if I could go out and interact with anthropologists that work in the field? What if I could get to “shadow” them for a day and actually physically see the work that goes into connecting the dots between species that have been yet to be discovered? THAT, my friend, would be learning. If I could study all of the subjects I encounter throughout my high school career in such a hands-on method, I think I would be passing, not only with flying colors, but with easy “A’s”. I guess you can just say that…I’m a little different. I prefer using my senses to learn, and I could only hope that one day, somewhere, I will get to do just that.

One thing that I have experienced through my life is the diversity of people you encounter on a daily basis. We are all very different in our ways of communication, thought, and action. I try to believe in the good in people, which slaps me in the face a lot if I look back upon my experiences prior to typing this, but I do also feel that some people DO naturally have great intentions for others. Those individuals are always the ones that are the rarest to find and the most impossible to forget, which makes them well worth the pursuance. I would say that I, myself, am a wisher and a hopeful and manage to do random acts of kindness each day out of genuine care.

I’m also always trying to find new ways to get out there through my creative talents because I feel as if my perspectives on the world and the experiences that I’ve gathered so far within my lifetime could potentially inspire other amateur artists like myself to have the confidence to explore their talents in the spotlight of the world. It can be intimidating to put yourself out there, but getting involved on the web has given me a new sense of invigorating freedom to express myself and to cultivate creativity in new and interesting ways. I’ve learned so much from other artists that I’ve interacted with online and I hope to one day feel as if I’ve made a similar difference amongst those that I have interacted with as well.

Hopefully this has given you a proper insight into what kind of individual/writer/artist I am, and I would love if you would subscribe and share with your friends. Sharing is caring! 🙂 Hopefully you find as much joy in my posts as I do when composing them!